GAME REPORT

Slovakia Go Out With A Win

Turning Point: During the early stages of the fourth period, it looked as if the Slovak Republic might go into meltdown as Lithuania edged closer to completing a great comeback. However a big triple by Darina Misurova with five minutes remaining took the margin back to ten points, shifted the momentum and gave her team the confidence to finish the job.

Game Hero: Forward Lucia Kupcikova really came alive to finish with 18 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists for the Slovak Republic.

Stats Don't Lie: Lithuania started off with a near stone cold and astonishingly poor 1 of 18 from the field and also had 17 turnovers in the first half.

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While it was ultimately too little too late, the Slovak Republic salvaged some pride and left the tournament on a high with a win against Group A winners Lithuania.

The win was made even more impressive since they were again without the influential Luisa Michulkova to lead the way in the backcourt.

However it was the frontcourt that stepped up as Lucia Kupcikova produced a stellar 18 point performance while fellow forward Katarina Tetemondova was a defensive kingpin with 8 rebounds and 4 steals.

While Lithuania knew they couldn't take any potential win into the second round, this did not detract from the accomplishments of Slovak Republic since Coach Paulauskas and his team were clearly determined to fight back in the latter stages.

Right from the tip, the Slovak Republic really did a great job defensively in making life difficult for their opponents, no better evidenced than 25 turnovers for Lithuania in the game.

They also raced out of the blocks and established a quick-fire double digit advantage at 20-8 which paved the way for a 19 point lead later in the game - an important cushion for when things got tricky during a comeback by Lithuania early in the final quarter.

COACH QUOTES

Quotes Slovak Republic vs. Lithuania

Slovakia Head Coach Natalia Hejkova:"It's always better to go home on a win than a loss. We were much better than we were yesterday (v Turkey). In this game and against Russia, we did more than I could have expected. But against Russia we had that last shot and lost by 2 points. We were so close to going through."

Slovakia Player Romana Vynuchalova:"We got some experience because we have a really young team who had never been to a Euro Champiponship before. That's good for them to have lived through that. But it's a big disappointment we're going home after three days."

Lithuania Forward Giedre Paugaite:"This game did not mean everything to us so maybe we need to forget it, rest and move on with our preparations for the second round. However it was important for the future that we played all 12 players and it was good for us all to get a feel for each other on the court."

Lithuania Head Coach Algirdas Paulaskas:"While we did not win the game, there are some parts that I am still happy about. Especially because at one point, we had four of our 1990 born players all on the court together at the same time and we still did fight in this game."